There were tears in her eyes when she ended; but they were tears of thankful happiness, and Lord Ventnor, a silent listener who missed neither word nor look, felt a deeper chill in his cold heart as he realized that this woman’s love could never be his.  The knowledge excited his passion the more.  His hatred of Anstruther now became a mania, an insensate resolve to mortally stab this meddler who always stood in his path.

Robert hoped that his present ordeal was over.  It had only begun.  He was called on to answer questions without number.  Why had the tunnel been made?  What was the mystery of the Valley of Death?  How did he manage to guess the dimensions of the sun-dial?  How came he to acquire such an amazing stock of out-of-the-way knowledge of the edible properties of roots and trees?  How?  Why?  Where?  When?  They never would be satisfied, for not even the British navypoking its nose into the recesses of the world—­often comes across such an amazing story as the adventures of this couple on Rainbow Island.

He readily explained the creation of quarry and cave by telling them of the vein of antimony embedded in the rock near the fault.  Antimony is one of the substances that covers a multitude of doubts.  No one, not excepting the doctors who use it, knows much about it, and in Chinese medicine it might be a chief factor of exceeding nastiness.

Inside the cavern, the existence of the partially completed shaft to the ledge accounted for recent disturbances on the face of the rock, and new-comers could not, of course, distinguish the bones of poor “J.S.” as being the remains of a European.

Anstruther was satisfied that none of them hazarded the remotest guess as to the value of the gaunt rock they were staring at, and chance helped him to baffle further inquiry.

A trumpeter on board the Orient was blowing his lungs out to summon them to luncheon, when Captain Fitzroy put a final query.

“I can quite understand,” he said to Robert, “that you have an affection for this weird place.”

“I should think so indeed,” muttered the stout midshipman, glancing at Iris.

“But I am curious to know,” continued the commander, “why you lay claim to the island?  You can hardly intend to return here.”

He pointed to Robert’s placard stuck on the rock.

Anstruther paused before he answered.  He felt that Lord Ventnor’s dark eyes were fixed on him.  Everybody was more or less desirous to have this point cleared up.  He looked the questioner squarely in the face.

“In some parts of the world,” he said, “there are sunken reefs, unknown, uncharted, on which many a vessel has been lost without any contributory fault on the part of her officers?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Well, Captain Fitzroy, when I was stationed with my regiment in Hong Kong I encountered such a reef, and wrecked my life on it.  At least, that is how it seemed to me then.  Fortune threw me ashore here, after a long and bitter submergence.  You can hardly blame me if I cling to the tiny speck of land that gave me salvation.”